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Exxon's crimes

Columnist Rich Lowry complains of several state attorneys general persecuting Exxon for its “dissent” on climate science (“AGs target Exxon for political persecution,” April 20). Really?

A Bloomberg News report stated recently: “The Earth is warming so fast that it's surprising even the climate scientists who predicted this was coming.” The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reports last month was the hottest March on record, and “2016 is on course to set a third straight annual record.”

The science of climatology has been warning us for decades about our abuse of our home planet. What has come to light recently is that Exxon's own climate experts researched the role of fossil fuel in global warming starting back in the 1970s, and their results agreed with the consensus opinion of climatology experts.

In the series “Exxon: The Road Not Taken” it was reported that Exxon began to realize this important research was going to impact their business negatively. So to prevent that from happening: “Exxon sowed doubt about climate science for decades by stressing uncertainty.” This successfully confused the public enough to prevent any regulatory actions by the government. Now we have an Arctic ice cap that is disappearing rapidly, glaciers melting in 40 degrees above normal in Greenland, and increasingly violent weather reports practically every day.

A Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act investigation of falsely generated climate reports by Exxon sounds appropriate to me. We should be outraged enough to demand an investigation by the Attorney General of the United States also.

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